More Colorado Marijuana Seized En Route to Other States, Report Finds

By
Associated Press
on August 28, 2014

The amount of Colorado marijuana being seized en route to other states through the US mail has more than quadrupled since 2010 and was destined for more states than before, according to a new report by a federally funded drug task force.

Postal inspectors seized more than 493 pounds of pot from packages in 2013, up from 57 pounds in 2010, the year after medical marijuana dispensaries proliferated in Colorado, according to the figures released this month by the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area.

Just 15 packages were bound for 10 states in 2010, compared to the 207 parcels destined for 33 states in 2013. Top destinations were Florida, Maryland and Illinois, the report states.

Colorado legalized marijuana for all adults over 21 in 2012. The report, based on information from the United States Postal Inspection Service, doesn’t contain figures for the first six months of 2014, when recreational pot shops opened in the state. The Postal Service in Denver has denied requests from The Associated Press for the same data.

The spike in pot seizures is a sign not of more proactive postal investigations but that more people are shipping pot through the mail, said Tom Gorman, director of Rocky HIDTA, a network of law enforcement organizations in four western states that share information on drug-running patterns. It releases a yearly report about marijuana legalization as part of its work.

Despite being legal in Colorado, federal law maintains marijuana use and sales are illegal. Because the Postal Service is a federal agency, using it to move marijuana – even within states where it is legal – is a crime.